Lasting Effects
by Totally-Out-Of-It
Summary: Kirk saw more than the destruction of Romulus in Spock Prime's mind meld. He saw a life, and he saw a death he'll do anything to prevent. Then came the moment when a choice had to be made. Spoilers for Into Darkness.


**Lasting Effects**

_Kirk saw more than the destruction of Romulus in Spock Prime's mind meld. He saw a life, and he saw a death he'll do anything to prevent. Then came the moment when a choice had to be made. Spoilers for Into Darkness._

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Mind melding was a strange experience. It was worse because he'd been given no warning before the meld started.

All that pain. All that agony. All that loss. Even after the meld ended, Kirk's world felt shattered, his heart cracked into a million pieces. He'd experienced the deaths of billions of lives in an instant as if their fear and dying breaths had been his own. It was almost more than he could bear.

The pain faded though, and Kirk was able to defeat the man responsible for the pain, defeat Nero, and return home to Earth. He was made a captain and given the _Enterprise_ as his own ship. They were assigned their first mission and everyone was excited to head out.

Kirk had thought that was the end of it, the end of the meld's effects. The ache in his heart had dulled away and he almost never thought of it. He was wrong.

Nothing bad happened. Not really. But the Enterprise would stop at this planet or that planet and the away team would head in, led by Kirk himself. Someone would step on a twig or he'd hear water running, and then he'd see it: a life that was not his own. He'd see another version of himself leading a team on this very same planet. He would know what had happened on that planet, what went right and wrong.

Don't make this gesture to the ambassador, it's rude. That plant eats people. The river isn't made of water, but acid. That beast is actually an alien cow. This planet is full of only females and they hate men, so tread carefully. That fruit will cause an allergic reaction with the strength of Earth's sun. That smoke makes everyone go insane. Oh god, not the tribbles.

Sometimes what he saw and felt wasn't the full story, but it was usually enough that he could plan out how to protect everyone under his command.

It was at least part of the reason he'd never lost anyone under his command in over a year.

One night, a few months into his captaincy, Kirk had a dream of a memory. He saw, as if from third person, as a much older him sat helplessly next to a glass door, desperate to get through it and save the Vulcan on the other side. He watched himself and Spock give their final farewells. He stood by while Spock died after saving the ship.

He would never stand idly by again. He couldn't accept that fate.

Obviously, he knew that Spock somehow survived. He had the vaguest idea that it was something about being a Vulcan, in particular, that saved Spock's life in that other time, but he didn't know what it was or if it would always work. Something told him they'd been lucky last time and not to try it again.

Nothing much changed on the _Enterprise _except that Kirk made sure that Spock was never put in a position where Kirk couldn't get him out of it if necessary. Until the volcano on Nibiru. He'd said damn the Prime Directive and damn the consequences, and had rushed in to save his First Officer.

No one seemed to understand why he'd done it. Even if he'd been up to trying to explain, no one was willing to listen either. But he respected Spock, looked up to him at the same time he resented him for his constant logic. For the first time in his life, Kirk was looking to someone else for advice and actually (sometimes) listening to it.

He couldn't even call what he felt toward Spock friendship. That's what he thought sometimes, that he and Spock were great friends. But it was also more than that. So sometimes he thought of them like brothers, so different and yet so much the same. But there were times when that didn't fit them either, and he was at a loss. He'd known the half-Vulcan for barely over a year and yet he felt like Spock was irreplaceable in his life. He was the other half of Kirk that he hadn't known was missing. He completed Kirk, professionally and personally, and made him a better captain and person.

Kirk wasn't sure what would happen to him if Spock died, so he made absolutely certain never to find out.

And then Khan showed up. Damn _Khan_.

Of course he didn't know it was Khan at first. He'd been suspicious from the first time he'd seen the man's face, a sort of nervous jittering under his skin. And then everything was happening so fast that he didn't give any thought to anything other than catching the son of a bitch and making him pay for all he'd done. He even started to dismiss his crew, the people he cared about more than anything, to get this job done and over with.

As soon as Khan told them his real name, Kirk had had difficulty processing the rest of his speech. It was there, but the part of Kirk's mind that was effected by the mind meld was suddenly screaming at him.

Be careful. Be cautious. Danger danger danger. Not good. Do not trust him. Manipulative. Coercive. Ruthless. Cold. Don't do it.

Kirk had shoved that aside, though. He wanted Khan to pay for killing Pike. He wanted revenge. These feelings he had toward Khan, all these dark emotions, were from his own personal vendetta. They had nothing to do with another life he might have lived. And he kept telling himself that until he believed it. He had a mission to complete and he was going to do it on his own terms, not old-Spock's.

Still, he couldn't quite ignore the near silent mantra in the back of his mind saying 'He's going to die. He's going to die. _He's going to die!'_

Kirk didn't have the time to figure out who that nagging voice meant. He had to do what was necessary to protect his crew. So he aligned with Khan, worked with him, even gave him a small amount of trust. It, predictably, blew up in his face. He hadn't been careful enough and everyone under his command was going to die because of it. The _Enterprise _was dead. And so was everyone on board. So was Spock. Everything he'd been trying so hard to prevent was coming to pass.

No. Not if James T. Kirk could help it.

Even as he first entered the warp core chamber, Kirk had known he wasn't going to make it. He remembered this event, though it was different this time around. Instead of Spock sacrificing himself to save the crew, it would be Kirk. And Kirk was okay with that. His life was worthless compared to the lives of everyone on board and he didn't regret a thing.

This single-minded focus was all that kept him going, even when all his fight and effort didn't seem to be doing any good. Something in his mind told him he was already dead, but the adrenaline rushing through his veins kept his body moving, at least until his job was done.

By the time the ship had stabilized and Kirk had managed to get back to the chamber door, he ached all over. He probably had a broken rib, and maybe a fractured leg, from his tumble down from the core. His lungs were on fire and breathing felt like walking through the burnt circles of Hell. His heart was pounding fierce and panicked in his chest. He could barely feel his body beyond the pain.

When he managed to open his eyes and saw Spock kneeling next to the door, Kirk panicked for a moment, thinking maybe he was delusional and Spock was the one dying instead of him. Then he focused and could tell that Spock was safe. Everyone was safe. Everyone was going to live.

Except for him.

Death terrified Kirk. He'd convinced everyone that he didn't care, always jumping into danger and seemingly not thinking things through before giving orders. It was all a ruse. He'd lost too many people to death to not care. He didn't want to die.

Yet seeing Spock sitting there, healthy, unharmed, alive, Kirk was okay with dying. He was still scared, still didn't want to die. But if his death meant that everyone else would live? He couldn't ask for more.

He remembered how Spock had died in the other timeline and tried to smile at how similar the situation was. Kirk had flipped fate on its head. He stared at his hand on the glass, at Spock's lying against the glass beyond, and saw in his mind how old-Spock had been revived. But Spock was a Vulcan and Kirk was human.

There would be no coming back from this for him.

So Kirk gave his First Officer, his best friend, his brother, his better half, the best goodbye he could manage. It was a 'Thank you' as much as an 'I'm sorry.' And then he lost himself to the darkness.

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My first ever Star Trek fic! Please leave a review and let me know what you think! Thanks for reading!


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